SEOUL (Agencies) - South Korea's "Squid Game" actor Oh Yeong-su has been found guilty of sexual misconduct, a local court said Friday, after he was charged with assaulting a woman in 2017.
The 79-year-old in 2022 became the first South Korean to win a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor in a series for his performance as a seemingly vulnerable old man in the mega-hit Netflix dystopian thriller. He was also nominated for a 2022 Emmy for his performance on the show, which is still the most watched series ever on Netflix.
The actor was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Court told AFP.
He has been also ordered to complete 40 hours of classes on sexual violence, the court added.
Many of the hearings in the case had been closed to the public. Oh had publicly denied the charge.
The verdict and sentencing were announced on Friday at a district court in Seongnam, a city south-east of Seoul.
The victim's own records of the assault and her claims are "consistent ... and appear to be statements that cannot be made without actually experiencing them," judge Jeong Yeon-ju said, according to the court.
Oh was indicted in 2022 without detention on charges of sexually assaulting a woman, who has not been identified, on two occasions.
The incidents took place when Oh was staying in a rural area for a theatre performance in 2017, on a walking path and in front of the victim's residence, respectively, according to the Suwon District Court.
"Squid Game," a series that depicts a dark world where marginalised individuals are forced to compete in deadly versions of traditional children's games, quickly gained immense popularity on Netflix.
Within less than four weeks of its release in 2021, it attracted a staggering 111 million viewers.
The show's success has amplified South Korea's increasingly outsized influence on global popular culture, following global fame won by the likes of K-pop band BTS and the Oscar-winning film "Parasite".
Multiple figures in South Korea's film industry -- including late filmmaker Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyun -- have faced sexual assault allegations.
For the record, Oh, who has appeared in more than 200 plays since 1968 and won numerous theatre awards, is considered one of South Korea’s most accomplished stage actors.
The sexual misconduct charge hurt his career well before the court rendered a verdict. Oh was not included in the cast for Season 2 of Squid Game, scheduled for release in 2024. South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has also stopped airing a government commercial that features him.
Oh will also will not appear in an upcoming film called About Family by South Korean director Yang Woo-seok. The film’s distribution company, Lotte Entertainment, told the local news media in February that it was deleting all of his scenes and refilming them with another actor, Lee Soon-jae.
In 2023, Oh was dropped from the cast of a South Korean play Love Letter, about a pair of actors who take turns reading love letters to each other.
Oh’s accuser filed a complaint against him in 2021, prompting a police investigation in Seongnam. Prosecutors eventually dropped the case, but the woman appealed to reopen it, and Oh was later charged after more evidence was gathered.
In November 2022, Oh told JTBC, a South Korean broadcaster that first reported the charge, that he had only held the accuser’s hand to guide her way during a walk around a lake. He also said that he had apologised to her, not as an admission of wrongdoing but because she had said she would not make an issue of his behaviour if he did so.
“I am sorry,” he told reporters while walking into his first court hearing in February 2023. “I think I behaved badly.”
But he continued to deny the charge.
Other details of the case have not been made public. The hearings have been closed and the woman has not been identified, in keeping with standard practice for sex crimes cases in South Korea.
People convicted of indecent assault in South Korea become registered sex offenders who are monitored by the police even after completing their prison terms. First-time offenders can receive reduced sentences, or simply a fine. - Agencies
